Acquisition Of Academic Literacy Research Articles

The social uses of the online chatroom as a boundary object for the acquisition of academic literacy in pandemic times

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a catalyst for ongoing pedagogic changes in the higher education landscape, especially with the use of online modes of delivery. The digital shift triggered questions around student engagement and the need to ensure that, despite physical distancing, students did not feel alienated from online learning spaces. This was part and parcel of our ethics of care prerogative. In the context of teaching academic literacy online, our teaching experiences have prompted us to interrogate how we understand student participation and sense-making in online spaces during the pandemic. This is particularly important for us, as we view academic literacy as a set of socially embedded practices rather than decontextualised skills (Street, 1983). We argue that during the Covid-19 pandemic, the online chatroom as a boundary object (Bowker & Star, 2000) was recruited as a proxy for the traditional classroom. We focus on how this boundary object was recruited by us as academic literacy lecturers in our first-year academic literacy course to realise certain features of our pedagogy of discomfort. Through a critical discourse analysis of written interactions in the chatroom, we explore how we as lecturers constrained the multiple social uses of the chatroom in order to imbue it with a particular function, a sense-making space for the acquisition of academic literacy in the context of ‘Emergency Remote Teaching’.

Using the Mother Tongue as a Resource: Building on a Common Ground with "English Only" Ideologies

This paper seeks to offer a constructive critique of the idea that in order to align US writing instruction with the learning needs of a globalized, linguistically diverse population, writing studies should challenge the notion that the English language needs to play a central role in college composition courses. I point out rhetorical and pedagogical fallacies in a language rights discourse that warns against “ceding rhetorical ground to monolingual ideologies” (Flowers 33) by affirming writing studies’ commitment to ensuring access to English while promoting linguistic diversity within writing instruction. I then discuss a translingual writing program I started at a Hispanic Serving Institution that links ESL and Spanish writing courses within a learning community. I discuss how the implementation of this program relied on finding a common ground with “English only” ideology and show how this program disrupted “unilateral monolingualism” (Horner and Trimbur 595), in spite of the fact that it foregrounded the need to facilitate English academic literacy acquisition.

“Like special oriental spices added into Western food”: An ecological study of an EFL student's literacy autobiography and its pedagogical implications

Little is known about literacy autobiography (LA) in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context. Using the triad of translingualism, transnationalism, and investment as a lens to examine the classroom writing ecology (which is composed of the participants, process, artifacts, and structure), the present ethnographic case study explores a Chinese graduate student's LA writing in a writing course for translators. Data include multiple drafts, weekly journals, interviews, and course documents. The researcher found that the classroom writing ecology had a great impact on the student's LA writing. Although transnationalism did not directly motivate her to invest in LA writing, it informed her writing in significant ways, and her sustained investment in LA writing culminated in strong signs of translingualism in her final draft. This study contends that translingualism and transnationalism are both relevant in EFL literacy education. It also contributes new knowledge on the pedagogical use of LA to facilitate EFL learners' acquisition of academic literacy and to nurture their translingual subjectivity. In adopting LA in EFL writing education, teachers are encouraged to provide a classroom writing ecology that supports multilingual students' LA‐mediated identity work by embracing a resource perspective on students' prior literacy experiences, a dialogical pedagogy, and a research‐oriented, multidraft approach.

Translanguaging in a bilingual writing programme: the mother tongue as a resource for academic success in a second language

ABSTRACT This paper reports on a writing programme I started at Bronx Community College to improve academic success among recently immigrated Spanish-speaking students by linking ESL courses to Spanish academic literacy courses within the framework of a learning community. My reflection begins by articulating the pedagogical rationale for looking beyond ‘English-only’ approaches to the teaching of college writing in the context of the U.S. language demographics. I discuss how the linked course model facilitated the circumvention of ‘normative English monolingual ideologies’ and the implementation of a translingual approach to college writing in an institution where English is the only language of instruction. Drawing on a longitudinal study that includes a comparative analysis of academic success metrics and in-depth interviews, I show how the translingual pedagogical strategies that emerged from the linked courses facilitated English academic literacy acquisition and the ability to succeed through this language.

The Reconstruction of Identities: A Membership Categorization Analysis of International Students’ Identity Reconstruction in the Process of Academic Literacy Acquisition

The Reconstruction of Identities: A Membership Categorization Analysis of International Students’ Identity Reconstruction in the Process of Academic Literacy Acquisition

Dialogue and subject positioning in pedagogical practice: the academic literacies classroom in a Ghanaian University

ABSTRACT The importance of academic literacy acquisition through enculturation in higher education is self-evident. Important within the processes of enculturation is how interactants are positioned. This study examines how interactants within the writing classroom of a higher education institution in Ghana are positioned through dialogue. Data for this study are recordings of lectures of a mandatory undergraduate programme. The study indicates that though there are attempts to position the student as an active and equal participant within the writing classroom, the instructor still emerges as dominant participant. It also establishes that the pedagogical practices of the classroom adopt strategies such as peer deliberations, and epistemic discovery to help foster personal agency development in the student. It concludes that the academic literacies model has not informed what goes on in the literacies classroom of the institution. The study recommends that the enculturation processes will have to adopt a more critical approach.

Investigating understanding of academic literacy in English medium degree programmes among stakeholders in Sri Lankan higher education

With the proliferation of English Medium Degree Programmes (EMDPs) around the world, there is an increasing need to provide academic and linguistic support for undergraduates whose first language is not English who are enrolled in these programmes (Jacobs, 2006; Thesen, Jacobs, Paxton, 2016). While providing this support has been traditionally considered the responsibility of the language lecturer (Jacobs, 2006; McKenna, 2014), there is increasing awareness of two emerging factors: (a) the generic English as a Second Language (ESL), English for Academic Purposes (EAP), English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses conducted by English language lecturers are inadequate to support students as they make the transition to English Medium Instruction (EMI) (Jacobs, 2006; McKenna, 2014), and (b) language and content lecturers need to work closely in order to develop curricula, lesson material and assessments that enable students to perform optimally in their EMDPs (Jacobs, 2006). This paper investigates the concept of academic literacy in Sri Lankan Higher Education (SLHE) and emphasizes the need to develop the academic literacy of the undergraduates of Sri Lankan universities. Despite mainstreaming academic literacy being the optimum approach in the EMI context, executing it in Sri Lanka is challenging. The researchers view the acquisition of academic literacy as an additive process where it is the logical next step after the acquisition of ESL and EAP/ESP. This study collects data by (a) interviewing lecturers and undergraduates and (b) analyzing official documentation of ten faculties of three state universities. Data analysis has been done through Qualitative Content Analysis (QCA). Findings of this study indicate that there is little awareness about the concept of academic literacy among the stakeholders, and when there is awareness, there is inadequate attention paid to it.

Propuesta didáctica para una primera aproximación a la escritura del artículo científico en Euskera

Producir textos académicos escritos es una de las primeras tareas a las que se enfrenta el alumnado una vez ingresa en la universidad. Iniciar los estudios superiores trae consigo la necesidad de aprender las formas de interacción oral y escrita de esa nueva comunidad discursiva y, como consecuencia, entrar en un proceso de alfabetización académica. Escribir será, además, la herramienta con la que los estudiantes mostrarán los conocimientos aprendidos y el medio por el que serán evaluados. Este trabajo presenta una herramienta didáctica para que el alumnado se acerque, con la ayuda del profesorado o de manera autónoma, a la escritura de textos académicos en euskera, independientemente del área en el que estén recibiendo su formación. Se trata de una propuesta didáctica que busca mejorar la formación en Educación Superior y responder a las demandas educativas mediante el enfoque basado en los géneros discursivos. En este caso, el género seleccionado es el artículo científico. La aplicación de esta propuesta contribuye a identificar las características de estos textos académicos y a familiarizarse con las demandas comunicativas de estas producciones. De manera paralela, propicia el aprendizaje autónomo y el desarrollo de habilidades discursivas para desenvolverse en la comunidad universitaria.

The identity (re)construction of international students in the process of academic literacy acquisition

ABSTRACT Despite the growing number of international students in higher education, few studies have examined these students’ struggles or ideological development process as they enter new communities of practice. This study uses longitudinal ethnographic and autoethnographic methods to examine the experiences of three South Korean international graduate students at a U.S. university. Data included recorded conversations, reflective journals, personal journals, and computer-mediated communication collected during participants’ second and third semesters in the graduate program. The data were analyzed to determine how participants construct, negotiate, and develop their ideologies and positions in the process of entering a new academic discourse community, relating and responding to various ideological discourses and power-laden labels imposed on them. Study findings highlight the dynamic nature of international students’ academic literacy acquisition, and the complex process of their ideological becoming.

“Students Make History Every Day Just by Sitting on These Steps”: Performative Spaces and Re-Genring in the South

Students’ call for decolonising the curriculum has triggered deep reflection about what we teach and how we teach it, but equally, about the role of pedagogic spaces in recognising students as agents in their learning. This paper is situated within the field of academic literacies, where students’ engagement with texts is seen as being context-specific, and involving assertions of agency to various degrees. The added dimension here is the embedding of digital literacies, defined as a set of customised online practices, into a writing-intensive, first year, foundational course at a South African university, to favour the acquisition of academic literacies. The analysis of different spaces becomes crucial in grasping how innovative forms teaching and learning may take place. In his trialectics of space, Lefebvre distinguishes between perceived, conceived and lived spaces. Butler would refer to lived spaces as “performative” ones, “congealing” into form through iterative use. Online learning spaces may well turn into performative spaces as students inhabit them, interact with online resources and explore their spatial boundaries. I perform a discourse analysis of students’ textual practices on the online and physical spaces, to explore how students reproduce or subvert genre categories through processes of “re-genring.” Furthermore, I share the extent to which such pedagogic spaces become performative, the power dynamics that emerge, and their effects on our traditional conception of teaching and learning in higher education.

“But I Learn More Bad Grammars When I Write to My Classmates”: Acquiring Academic Literacies in a Multicultural Writing Class

This qualitative case study sought to understand the experiences of international college students who were involved in the acquisition of academic literacies (via an English-as-a-Second-Language writing class). Data sources included observation field notes; messages posted in an online discussion forum; transcripts of interviews with five focal students and their instructor; and student-level reflective journal entries. Findings were validated via the triangulation of multiple data sources. Several themes emerged from the analyses that are associated with academic adjustment and intercultural communication, including an energetic class that highly valued participation, conflicting student views on participation, and unvalued collaboration. Implications included the provision of instructionrelated opportunities that enable students to explore the cultures and culturally diverse communication styles of their academic peers

The Messiness of Meaning Making: Examining the Affordances of the Digital Space as a Mentoring and Tutoring Space for the Acquisition of Academic Literacy

Having incorporated a digital aspect to our academic literacy course, and having monitored this over the last three years, we have come to believe that online mentoring can serve as an essential form of tutoring and mentoring. Our study is located in the field of New Literacy Studies and examines the affordances of a digital space in a first year academic literacy course in the Humanities. We focus on students’ acquisition of academic literacy, as well as critical thinking and reflexivity around a core social science concept; identity. Here, we refer to the ability to think critically and reflexively, as the ‘analytical mode’, a key driver in shaping the pedagogy of the course. In this paper, we explore the online participation of two students and how they engage with the theme of identity, not only as an academic concept but also as one intrinsically linked with how they see themselves in a diverse post-apartheid South African context. We argue that the digital space promotes a particular form of the ‘analytical mode’ as students grapple with texts and concepts on the academic literacy course. Using a qualitative case study methodology, our analysis of students’ online interaction revealed that the digital space allowed students to express themselves with a level of depth and sophistication, and to share dissident views that could not be expressed in the traditional classroom space. Furthermore, we argue that the digital space can suspend students’ urgency to agree or disagree with the arguments of authors they read. By holding students between the two positions of agreement and disagreement, we propose that the digital space becomes a space of reflexive1 discomfort which captures various moments in students’ drafting processes as they operate within the analytical mode. Therefore, we argue that the digital space, if harnessed with a particular type of mentoring philosophy and pedagogy that activates the analytical mode, can free up. the traditional forms of academic mentoring and tutoring within the academy. This allows students the freedom to live with the messiness of their texts and to grapple with their conceptual understanding, and in doing so, develop their ‘authorial self’ (Clark & Ivanic, 1997).

Word knowledge in academic literacy skills among collegiate ESL learners

Abstract The study probed into the relationship between word knowledge and academic literacy skills in college-level English as a second language (ESL) learners. Morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge were included in the word knowledge measures. In addition, reading comprehension and academic writing were the outcome variables. Using the data from 118 ESL students in Hong Kong, we found that both morphological awareness and vocabulary knowledge contributed to academic literacy skills. More important, direct and indirect effects of word knowledge on academic literacy skills were tested to provide insight into how two facets of word knowledge interact in shaping academic literacy acquisition. The results demonstrated that vocabulary knowledge mediated the relationship between morphological awareness and academic literacy skills. The study suggests that morphological sensitivity could enhance word meaning extraction and local meaning construction, which subsequently facilitates academic literacy skills.

Academic Literacy Acquisition Beyond Cultural Boundaries: Taking Academic English Writing as a Case

From the western point of view, language, literacy and culture are interrelated and cannot be separated from one another when minority students’ learning behaviors are studied. This study is designed to discuss the issue from another point of view of the minority students themselves. It is aimed at depicting, by the emic approach, how those students go beyond the cultural boundaries and achieve academic literacy despite the discrepancies. The author conducted this quasi-experimental research study in a Chinese university classroom of teaching academic English writing to see the possibility and extent of the Chinese students’ acculturation into English academic field.

Institutional policies on plagiarism: The case of eight Chinese universities of foreign languages/international studies

Plagiarism is a major problem for universities worldwide and has been a constant cause of concern in higher education. Previous research has focused on Chinese students' attitudes toward, knowledge of, and engagement in plagiarism in Chinese and overseas educational contexts, and there is also a growing body of research on Chinese teachers' understandings of and stance on plagiaristic practices. However, little research attention has been given to institutional policies on plagiarism in the Chinese context, though similar research has been conducted in other settings. This paper reports on a study that examines the plagiarism policies made publicly available by eight major universities of foreign studies in mainland China. Both the structure and content of these universities' policy documents are analyzed to identify institutional understandings of, attitudes toward, and sanctions on plagiarism. The analysis reveals that despite inter-institutional variations, the policy documents are dominated by moralistic and regulatory discourses and are characterized by the conspicuous lack of an educative approach to plagiarism. We argue that such an institutional approach to plagiarism is unlikely to be effective because it largely fails to support students’ acquisition of academic literacy and legitimate intertextual practices.

Acquisition of academic literacy in an Engineering communication course: Integration of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) and Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)

This study investigated academic literacy practices by an EFL student at an Engineering Communication course in the University of Adelaide, Australia. It focused on finding a description of engineering written communication skills designed in the specific course and investigating the student’s response in the construction of a specific text type in the engineering community. A qualitative case study method was used where the data were taken from classroom observations, the student’s interviews, his writings, and other supporting data, such as a course booklet and several PowerPoint slides. The findings showed that working in a group discussion at the workshop sessions was perceived as the most useful academic literacy practice in acquiring engineering communication skills. It also revealed that academic literacy practices, such as accessing MyUni, using databases for a specific discipline, recognising graphic skills and using effective reading strategies were considered by him as new and useful practices in an academic culture which helped him execute written engineering communication assignments into a cohesive and coherent argumentative text. Overall, although he had different perceptions before and after completion of the course, he viewed the course design positively. Some ideas on how the course developers or tutors could match the course design with his practical needs were offered, such as mutual collaboration with the English lecturers who were providing the course and the implementation of a program of academic English for first year students.

Representing the other: the case of an academic literacy course in an engineering faculty

Drawing from the construct of legitimate peripheral participation (Lave and Wenger,1991)) and Gees (1996) trope of d/Discourses, concepts which locate learning in the socio-cultural interactions and co-participation between students and the more experienced people in disciplinary knowledge, this paper explores the dominant representations of academic literacy and of students in an engineering faculty. These representations were examined through the eyes of 24 engineering students, 2 engineering academics and 11 language tutors teaching a Technical Communication for Engineering course. Emerging representations are highlighted and these point to disjunctures between engineering students understanding of the role of academic literacy, language tutors conceptions of their role in the development of academic literacy and engineering academics understanding of the epistemic relation between academic literacy and engineering practice. While these representations are not necessarily negative, some discourses that arise can potentially exclude social agents (both students and academics) from effectively participating in the teaching and/or acquisition of academic literacy.

The Acquisition of Academic Literacy in the Eyes of a Chinese Graduate Student

This column features essays written by current middle school and high school teachers, media specialists, librarians, literacy coaches, curriculum specialists, administrators, preservice teachers, teacher educators, and adolescent and adult learners. They highlight diverse perspectives on teaching and/or learning with literacies to inspire reader reflection.

The influence of affective variables on the acquisition of academic literacy

The teaching of academic literacy at university level, internationally and at universities in South Africa, is quite common. Despite a great deal of research on various facets of academic literacy, little research has been done in terms of the influence of attitudes, emotions and motivation as affective variables at the start of an academic literacy module. It is clear that societal and contextual factors have an influence on the emotions, motivation and attitudes of students. This article reports on open-ended questionnaires and a focus group interview conducted with students enrolled in an academic literacy module at the start of the module, as well as an open-ended questionnaire after the completion of the module. The initial phases of the research show students’ negativity towards the module; however, after the completion of the module, students realise the value thereof. It is clear that within the context of the research populations in this study, more transparency is needed regarding the academic literacy test written prior to the start of the module, and students need to be better informed about the module so as not to only rely on peers’ perceptions of the module. Furthermore, modules should be subject-specific rather than generic and relevant to the needs of the students.

Through the lens of B.Ed. students’ self-narratives: The motivational roles of significant others in literacy acquisition

AbstractAccording to the Policy on Minimum Requirements for Teacher Education Qualifications (2011), the acquisition of academic literacies lays the foundation for effective learning in higher education. However, one of the major challenges for designers of academic literacies programmes is to accommodate culturally and linguistically diverse student groups. In response to this challenge the academic literacies curriculum for B.Ed. students overtly draws upon the multiple languages and literacies students bring to the university, using these as a foundation for initiating them into the literacy practices of academia. One of the methods used to operationalise this strategy was to introduce literacy narrative pedagogy, and to gain insight into students’ acquisition of literacies by analysing their self-narratives. This article describes students’ construction of the identities of significant others in their narratives. New literacy studies serve as the theoretical foundation for the pedagogy, and is used in...